Tesla is the latest example of a stock-market darling that has recently lost some steam. Shares dropped 17.3% in October, the first monthly decline since February and the biggest tumble since 2010. The electric-car marker’s stock price is poised to open Wednesday morning well below its Sept. 30 peak of $194.50.

Facebook Inc. and Herbalife Ltd. are other momentum stocks that have seen the pace of their gains come to a pause.

There wasn’t anything blaring in Herbalife’s report to suggest the stock should fall. But at the same time there wasn’t much that warranted another substantial leg up in the stock’s rally. (Keep in mind this is the stock that hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman is strongly betting against, but that is a subject reserved for another column.)

The action illustrates how rapidly these momentum stocks can run to the upside, only to hit resistance once companies’ report figures that don’t quite live up to the lofty expectations that their investors have priced in.

And Tesla’s own wunderkind CEO Elon Musk, himself, has worried publicly about Tesla’s valuation. He voiced those concerns prior to Tuesday’s quarterly results. “I think that we have quite a high valuation, and a higher valuation than we have any right to deserve,” Mr. Musk said at an October event to mark the opening of a new Tesla showroom in London. His comments were reported by the Financial Times.

To be sure, all of these stocks still sport huge year-to-date gains. And many investors have already used the earnings-related dips as buying opportunities.

But when the market suffers its next sizable pullback, many of these momentum stocks that led on the way up could be the first ones to fall on the way down.

Morning MoneyBeat Daily Factoid: On this day in 2001, Michael Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York City. Late Tuesday, Democrat Bill de Blasio was elected to replace Mr. Bloomberg.

STOCKS TO WATCH

Tesla Motors will be in focus, as after Tuesday’s closing bell the firm said it narrowed its third-quarter loss to 32 cents a share from a loss of $1.05 a share a year ago. On an adjusted basis, the electric vehicle company earned 12 cents a share. Revenue for the quarter jumped to $431.3 million from $50.1 million a year ago. But shares sank more than 9% in after hours as investors were disappointed with news that Tesla delivered only about 5,500 Model S units in the quarter. The deliveries were above the company’s own projections but below some analysts’s estimates. Craig Irwin at Wedbush had projected Tesla to deliver as many as 5,850.

Meanwhile, the company plans to deliver slightly under 6,000 Model S units in the fourth quarter and raised its total global deliveries outlook for 2013 to 21,500 from about 21,000 previously.

Abercrombie & Fitch said late Tuesday same-store sales plummeted 14% while total sales slid 12% to $1.03 billion in the third quarter. It also announced the closure of all stand-alone Gilly Hicks stores although the brand will continue to be sold online and at Hollister stores. Shares of Abercrombie & Fitch skidded over 6% in after-hours trading.

Humana is forecast to post third-quarter earnings of $2.15 a share, according to a consensus survey by FactSet.

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